


An Elegy for Hallownest

by theinfiknight477



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:14:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27319819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theinfiknight477/pseuds/theinfiknight477
Summary: A brief piece of poetry to celebrate and mourn the rise and fall of a kingdom of dreams, light and gods
Relationships: Herrah the Beast/The Pale King (Hollow Knight), The Hollow Knight | Pure Vessel & The Pale King, The Pale King/White Lady (Hollow Knight)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20





	An Elegy for Hallownest

A land apart did he arrive  
Empty of life and yet alive  
Mind and soul he gave to keep  
A king is made, rejoice and weep

Thought and self given to all  
Stand above to answer his call  
Eternity, a promise made to last  
The king looks forward, forgotten is past

Light left behind, a cast off shell  
Changing, growing, kingdom doth swell  
Stag to beast, mushroom to moth  
The king rules supreme, light is forgot

Light is forgot  
Light is forgot  
Awry strays the minds of the glow hungry moths  
Grievously will they pay  
For their sins that day  
To forget creator til they can remember naught

One great shell of eclipsed might  
One fierce, one mysterious, one kindly knight  
One malodorous brave that stains the air  
The king is great, his famed five, fair

All among all acknowledge his reign  
Pale king, White Queen, land lives again  
Great doors left open to all who seek  
The king shines radiant, for mighty and meek

Higher beings, these words are for you alone  
Welcome to the kingdom that gods call home  
Enter this land of creator and god  
The king permits it, obey our laws

Welcome to Hallownest, of legend and story!  
Welcome to the Eternal Kingdom! Share in its glory!

Make your fortune at crystal peak!  
Where unearthly stone seems to sing  
Else in the city find that which you seek  
Prosperity and fortune, promises the king

Wander along down the Pilgrim's Way  
Take in the beauty of greenkin tamed  
Behold the queen's gardens, wild and fey  
The king shines, supremity claimed

Explore the crossroads that wind afar  
Where trade and life does pulse and ebb  
Witness it thrive, a kingdom grown large  
The king at the center, of the living web

Rejoice to witness his light in person  
In thrall lies mortal bug stood before him  
Misery cannot exist, nor Kingdom worsen  
While in his radiance. All adore him!  
.  
.  
.  
.  
Memory lost shall remember again  
Light shines through in hearts of woe  
Eternity crumbles, ruin begun  
The king is fractured by forgotten foe

Unity offered, self removed  
Power and might in exchange for will  
Join something bigger, it behooves  
The king is shadowed, light shines still

Oh pale one, great one! oh glorious!  
They beg, they cry out, they despairingly call  
Scorching, radiant, bright but odious  
The king is helpless, light takes all

No cost too great, no act too low  
Of root and soul, in void will they grow  
Empty, mindless, to cage that which shines  
The king will act, against power divine

No will to break, no mind to think  
To gaze into blackest void, and not blink  
No voice to cry, no soul to die  
All light casts shadow, and shadowed they lie

A container to hold void enslaved  
Vessels of purity, the umbra's shade  
Birthed, shaped, and left to rot  
The king needs them not, they are forgot

Massive birthplace of void unmade  
Deep and dark does the abyss go  
Buried within do his children fade  
The king closes it off, they need not know

Chosen vessel, pure and empty  
Son and hero made, hope renewed   
Tarnished forever, by love aplenty  
The king mistakes, purity is skewed

Despair no more! Behold in awe!  
Palest God's most silent son!  
Empty, its core, without flaw!  
Our Hollow Saviour, the war is won!

Peace and heart, for a time return  
As silent Prince does grow and learn  
To think, to be, to feel and to fight  
Light and dark in a single shell, a Hollow Knight

Greater still is surety required  
Firmer still must the lock hold  
Three chosen to ascend ever higher  
The king is eternal, but time grows old

A lock for diversity, of the archive's halls  
A scholar, the teacher, wise and prepared  
Mask entrusted away, the endless calls  
The king requires the it, the dream Monomon shares

A lock for king, for dream, for monarch  
Loyalty and life, given for the throne  
Watcher on high, spire so dark  
The king demands it, Lurien sleeps alone

A lock for union between high and low  
A deal is made, a dalliance to keep  
The 'beast' is tamed and seeds are sown  
The king's work is finished, Herrah sleeps

Beloved of beast, daughter of Wyrm  
Raised by root, fierce and strong  
Hive trained to strike true and firm  
The king gives life, child of silk and song

Strength misjudged, bonds created  
A broken vessel to chain light unbound  
Eternity imprisoned, no end awaited  
The king imposes, sacrifice enshrouds

Willingly does it rise to meet it  
Freely does it sacrifice its soul  
For only by dark is light defeated  
But how so is it hollow, with no hole?

Where emptiness once lay, dreams persist  
Ideas and love and a life to give  
Kindness in its brow, restraint in its fist  
Never meant to die, but also never to live

Unknowing, the deed is done  
Unwilling, the king buries his son  
Unfeeling, it goes away to burn  
Never again may it return

Never again will light release.  
Never again will Hallownest know peace  
.  
The seal is set, the lock is done  
Our knight is chained, the war is won  
Light fades away, Kingdom secure  
All hail the king, eternity is here!

Eternity is here! Forget that fear!  
Forget that scorching glow!  
Bask now in pale glory of   
The kingdom that eternal grows!  
.  
.  
.  
.

Fading, fading  
Mind and soul awake  
Hurting, hurting  
Love and heart to take  
Empty, so empty  
Hollow, he is not  
Foolish, so foolish  
Hallownest begins to rot

Shame. Sorrow. Love, Light... and another  
Do not think. Do not feel. Do not...  
Father?

Light burns harsh, angry and proud  
Vengeance shines through Hollow shroud  
Forgotten she will not be, first and brightest  
The king needs understand, it is no foe he might best

Orange, virulent, infection spreads  
Mindless, soulless, unity takes  
Fear the living, strong and mad, fear the mindless dead  
The king regrets, low and sad, strongest of wills can break

Brother turns on brother, burning, burning  
Madness, a frenzy, churning, churning  
Carnage, rage, bodies flying, flying  
Massacred and broken, dying, dying

Gone is the promise, left has the dream  
Only echoes and shadows, acid and steam  
Kingdom of glory, left now for dead  
The king is silent, low bends his head

Greenkin lost, Unn hides away  
Bloated fungi disfigured like clay  
Bound in the garden, the white lady withdraws  
The king has failed. Lost is the war  
.  
It's over, it's here, the doom that I feared  
It's done, they've won, all I hold dear  
Is gone, by spawn, of blight divine  
I've failed, oh jailed, Hollow son of mine.

Fate will not deny its course  
I cannot see the way, and fear the worst  
An end has reached its time to die  
Shame drowns in sorrow. Goodbye.   
.  
.  
.  
Gone is the king, cry in lament!  
Abandoning the very ones that he swore  
To protect, tearing open a mighty rent  
In his own heart, shut like the great doors

Dear king, how, why have you left us?!  
We wander and we search for you still  
Into darkness we stumble, for it yet does  
Hurt in our hearts where once was your will

They still call out your name with despair and regret  
For none could tame their savage souls, yet you the challenge met  
What you gave to bug and beast was unfathomable, and yet  
Foolish it was to make them, their first light, forget

The fading town reduces and dies  
Kingdom and city now, in ruin lies  
No dream, no mind, only light and pain  
The king is gone. What now remains?

Palace vanished, knights five, disbanded  
Monarch but a memory, stagways abandoned  
Limbo sleeps forever, mourn the paradise lost  
The king's love severed, this is eternity's cost

One by one the last souls burn  
In search of glory that will not return  
Enter the darkness and succumb to light  
The king is long gone, for he lost the fight

He lost the fight!   
He lost the fight!  
Give your self up to blinding light!  
Take all your dreams and hold them close  
The light calls out, and your willingness shows

Give in to light!  
Give in to light!  
Forget that foolish king!  
Forget his insolent attempt to close what never should have been!

Power, knowledge, and all that your heart desires  
Come to me, become greater, burn in the cosmic fire!  
.  
.  
.

Fools gather at kingdoms edge  
Drown their fear in violence and blood  
Ancient sorrows do they dredge  
The king shadows in shell molt flood

Buried in green, a hunter wastes away  
Closed, angry, mantis warriors stand proud  
Deeper, hungry, the beast's devout, decay  
Bereft, lost , kingdom withers in the ground

Ancient nailmasters mourn in solitude  
Remnants of greatness from a better age  
Nailsage's legacy, once strong and shrewd  
Now faint as marks on a torn off page

Mossmen remain in puddles of leaf  
Awaiting a return ever unreturning  
Wishing like all else, drowning in grief  
For a lost god that vanished after the burning

The light seeks out even those who hide  
Tempting the brave, proud and the mighty  
Even the unbending mantis lords' pride  
Do not blind themselves to it lightly

Even among the proud, traitors emerge  
Valuing strength above mind and skill  
Petras and warriors, lost to the scourge  
Caring not for the battle, only for the kill

The queen's gardens are lost to those  
Invaders who, expelled from their lands  
Enraged, swarm that thorned repose  
Executing the will of their light's command

Seeking palest root, bound and blind  
Solitude in exile, like her beloved  
But of the mighty, the mysterious, and kind  
The fierce of the five still guards what they covet

The mysterious, the heartbroken withers alone  
Distant from her love, far from her home  
Brave Ogrim slowly loses his mind,  
His faith and the the very life of the Kind

Outsiders, few, still sparingly appear  
A strange fool who thinks himself mighty  
A masked bug lured by memory unclear  
And a haughty warrior approaching doom lightly

Very few now remain in the fading town  
The old bug who stands by and advises  
The mapmaker who ever heads further down  
But on a distant hill, a figure rises!

A diminutive echo of deep silence  
That approaches unceasingly, toward  
The great door that does Kingdom fence,  
Holding aloft the ghost of a sword

That strikes at the great portal, with nail  
Cracked and grown old with wear  
With strength unseeming for one so frail  
Shattering the door as if it were never there

Small and weak seems the knight  
As it enters the land plagued bright  
Can an entire kingdom's fate  
Rest on the silhouette in the gate  
That enters so boldly and unafraid  
Unfeeling as void in which it was made  
Drawn once more by phantom's call  
Returning to the land of light's fall

No mighty strength does it seem  
To wield as it walks as if in dream  
Down the dusty, ashen road  
That leads to lonely, fading abode  
.  
.  
.  
.  
A land apart did it arrive  
Empty of life and yet alive  
Blood and corruption now does seep  
A kingdom is dead, sorrow and weep

Higher beings, heed well this writing  
Focus soul to heal crack and seam  
Through twisted spell or vulgar fighting  
You will achieve that which others can only dream

Every footstep hangs heavy with fate  
Into the kingdom that burns in light  
The speck that will confound even the great  
The unceasing march of the Hollow Knight

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed that somewhat. Hope I managed to translate some of the things this game made me feel, to you.


End file.
